Asus Zenfone Max Review Camera Quality And Battery Life

Asus Zenfone Max was launched in India on Flipkart on 4 January 2016 though the smartphone was announced in September 2015. The Asus Zenfone Max is an affordable smartphone priced at Rs. 9,999 and promises to deliver 2 days of battery life.

The Asus Zenfone Max have all the necessary features and offers good value for money in the Sub 10K Price range. Lets find out some of the intricate details that I discovered using it for last 7 days.

In this review I have focused on 3-4 aspects more which are quite relevant in case of the Zenfone Max – Battery life, Camera Quality , Performance and User Experience.

In The Box

Asus Zenfone Max

Charging cable

Adapter

Reversible Charging Cable

User manual

No Earphones

Build Quality and Design

As I opened the box and took out the Zenfone Max it looked large compared to the 5.0-inch screen of my 2-year-old Nexus 5. In-fact it looks slightly bigger that the Lenovo K4 Note or the LE 1S which I reviewed some days back. It does have a slightly lower screen to body ratio.

The smartphone looks elegant and more than that it feels very robustly built. The back cover features a leather matter kind of finish which I liked compared to slippery plastic on most smartphones. It is not stitched leather like the Samsung Note 3 but a pasted layer of matte leather. It helps to reduce any heating effect and also makes the grip much better than most other smartphones.

The Asus Zenfone Max does not feel too heavy or too thick which I was expecting as it packs a rather large battery (5000 mAH). The Zenfone Max has a thickness of 10.2 mm and 202 grams weight but it doesn’t feel too heavy and thick considering the large screen size.

The metallic edge around the corner adds to the premium look and I liked the fit and finish of the volume rocker and the power button on the side of the smartphone.

The Dual Sim card tray and the dedicated micro SD card is located inside the back compartment which you can access by opening the back cover. You get a dedicated micro SD card slot to augment the 16 GB of storage that Zenfone Max comes with.

Let’s Check the design and Build Quality

Display

The Zenfone Max 5.5 inch display feels large and has an HD Resolution ( 1280*720). Color reproduction is passable and being an IPS LCD screen it looks fade out like my Nexus 5, nothing like the OLED display on a Samsung S7. It will be unfair to compare it to that. The screen to body ratio is low 69% as the bezels and space on top and bottom of the screen take more space.

The display is protected by Corning’s Gorilla Glass 4 which is incredible for a smartphone in this price range.

If I compare it to the Lenovo K4 Note Full HD display, I liked the K4 Note FHD display more compared to Zenfone Max HD display, then again we have a more expensive smartphone and a much higher pixel density.

Colors are not oversaturated on the Zenfone Max, they look natural or a little faded compared to Nexus 5 display. Overall display is satisfying if you can get to the UI.

User Interface and Key Features

The Zenfone Max runs on the Android Lollipop 5.1 and has a custom Zen UI spread on top of it.

Sea Greenish user interface is something I am not very used to. The Font sizes are large and it just looks okay. My perspective again can be a bit different since I am more used to the stock android experience which somehow looks cleaner than most custom skins.

The Greenish, Blueish and Greyish Icons and notification bar look a bit washed out to me compared to even Stock android.

There are tons of preloaded Apps and features in the Zenfone Max

The Asus Mobile Manager – This is the central control APP which does a lot of things in the Zen UI and is also quite useful.

Key Features in the Mobile Manager :

Power Saver Mode

Auto Start

Data Usage Monitoring

RAM management and Usage

Notifications Manager (Block Notifications)

Virus Scanning

These are a lot of handy features some which are available in the stock android others are bundled by Asus.

Music Enhancement Option

There is a music enhancement App which allows you to choose the presets and the affects you wish to use in all the Apps like YouTube or Android Music.

There are no earphones supplied with the smartphone, I used the earphones which I got with the Samsung S7 and sound is okay on the device compared to some of the mobiles using the Dolby technology or other sound enhancement technologies